Change course or pay political price

OPINION: A political commentator

It is precisely because the BJP is benefitting from the government's policies that the CPI(M) firmly opposes those political and economic measures.

The political situation is marked by a growing disenchantment among the people with the UPA government. This is getting reflected in the electoral defeats suffered by the Congress party "� whether they be in Punjab, Uttarakhand or the Delhi municipal corporation elections.

The finance minister glibly talks of achieving 10 per cent GDP growth, at a time when he should be seriously tackling the problems of inflation and price rise. His other concerns seem to be to get the pension fund privatised and raise the foreign direct investment (FDI) cap in insurance.

The agriculture minister seems oblivious that procurement of wheat by the FCI is languishing, while private traders corner the crop. This will have a deleterious effect on the public distribution system (PDS) which already has seen a cutback of supplies. The finance minister has increased the food subsidy by 6.2 per cent in the Union Budget when the rate of inflation is 6 per cent to 7 per cent, thereby actually whittling down the subsidy.

The UPA government has totally failed to tackle the agrarian crisis. It has refused to implement even one of the major recommendations of the National Farmers Commission. It is still pursuing policies which will harm agriculture. The terms of the free trade agreement with the Asean (Association of South Asian Nations) will entail further cuts in import duties on agricultural commodities.

The commerce minister is bent upon bringing FDI in retail by hook or by crook. The Wal-Mart-Mittal deal is one such venture. The Congress president is unable to stop FDI in retail, even after asking the government to be careful on the issue. The UPA government and the Congress leadership will be responsible for ruining the livelihood of millions of small traders if the commerce minister has his way.

The commerce minister is also an ardent advocate of the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), which, in their present form, are designed to promote real estate profiteering and, through exorbitant tax sops, distort the pattern of development in the country. The minister's dogged defence of the existing SEZ Act and rules indicates that he is not alone in pushing for this iniquitous model of SEZs.

The Congress and its UPA partners have also contributed to facilitating some of the successes of the BJP and the communal forces. The most glaring example is in Maharashtra, where the Congress and the NCP are locked in a no-holds-barred contest. In Pune corporation, the NCP combined with the Shiv Sena for the posts of the mayor and the deputy mayor. The Congress retaliated in some other places in a similar fashion. Consorting with the Shiv Sena is an unpardonable act for a secular party.

The Congress leadership has to decide whether it wants to run a government which keeps the priorities of US companies like Wal-Mart and AIG uppermost or the country's sovereign interests. Whether it will muster the courage to direct the government to effect a major course correction or continue to concede political ground to the BJP and the rightwing opposition.

The Congress leadership should not take the support of the Left parties to the government for granted by posing the threat of the BJP. It is precisely because the BJP is benefitting from the Congress stance and the government's policies that the CPI(M) firmly opposes all those political and economic measures which create the grounds for the communal forces to feed on popular discontent. The Congress leadership has to ensure that the UPA government changes course. Failure to do so will extract a heavy political price.

(Excerpts from an article in People's Democracy, the organ of the CPI(M), in the issue dated, April 22, 2007)